


Do You Want to Go Home Now?

by shrink



Category: Morrissey (Musician), The Smiths
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:57:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrink/pseuds/shrink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny reforms the band. Andy watches him, waiting to understand why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Want to Go Home Now?

**Author's Note:**

> Poetry excerpts on Johnny's sections and title come from Richard Siken's poetry. Italic quotes from Morrissey's sections come from John Fowles' "The Collector."

**I.** **_Even when you’re standing up you look like you’re lying down._ **

  
Johnny hadn't prepared himself for resistance to the idea. “So what do you say?” Andy wouldn’t make eye contact. He was just staring at the froth left on the ring around the glass of beer he was working on. Sometimes it was hard for the guitarist to remember that they were both adults now, carrying all the cynical hesitancies that multiply with age.  
  
Andy cocked his head to the side. Johnny could tell he had been waiting for this conversation from the moment he’d picked up his phone last week; the purpose of this meet-up. Johnny had lots of friends. Andy knew he didn’t need him to kick around ideas about chord progressions, when Noel Gallagher or Peter Buck were on speed dial. There were only so many things, Andy knew, that he could bring to the table. And a walk down memory lane was never a direction Johnny seemed willing to steer. Particularly after the interview Andy had stumbled across last month where Johnny refused to discuss the Smiths because it was “so long ago he couldn’t remember” or something to the effect. So it made the conversation all the more fantastic and if he were an _actual_ celebrity he might be convinced that he were on one of those prank shows.  
  
“Have you talked to Mike? If we’re going to do it, why not...” It seemed straightforward enough at first. A Smiths reunion without Morrissey. They could get some other indie frontman to take over vocals. And sell-out a few venues while being lampooned in the music press for replacing "Saint" Morrissey. But the more Johnny talked about his idea, this less Andy understood. There didn’t see to be an angle.  
  
Johnny waved his hand. “No need, I have a drummer.” His tone was light, and he hoped, dismissive enough to stop this line of questioning.  
  
“You have a bassist too,” Andy said, as he watched Johnny smile and nod at someone at another table.   
  
“What’s this I’m hearing; you don’t want to knock out the old stuff with me?” Johnny’s lips quirked down. People used to call him charming, and he’d believed it. But he knew manipulative was more accurate. But it’s hard to stop what you’re good at, he’d reasoned, no matter how bad it feels.  
  
Andy shrugged. Johnny knew he was going to say yes before he’d asked him, they both knew that. The question was how many questions the bassist would ask. And how long could they sidestep the one they both didn’t want to address.  
  
“The whole set?”  
  
“All Smiths.”  
  
“Could be fun,” Andy said, suddenly wishing he hadn’t let Johnny pay for his drink.

Johnny grinned. “Just a few shows mate, no commitments. I’ll work out the venues”

Andy looked down again, so that his bangs obscured his eyes, “you don’t think that people will say this is about Morrissey, especially if you’re not hiring a new frontman?”  
  
Johnny blew a small breath of air from his lips. “As far as anyone will care, this is Johnny Marr and the Healers, playing the music that I wrote over twenty-five years ago.”  
  
Andy nodded and wondered if Johnny thought he believed that.  
  
“I’m in if Mike is,” Andy said, and Johnny hid his frown by taking a long sip of his lager.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
**II.** _ **I just don't know. What you do blurs over what you did before**_

  
“Put it away, I can scarcely be in the same room knowing it’s attached to you.”  
  
“Morrissey, you’re going to have to come to terms with my vagina at some point.”  
  
“Very clever,” he shook his head, not smiling, and pressed his hand to the back of his neck. Linder dropped her cell phone back into her purse after turning it to silent.  
  
“Suddenly everyone collectively decides that I’m worth an inch in their columns if they can coerce a scathing comment from me.”  
  
“Don’t tell me this is about Johnny Marr and the _Stealers_ ,” she’d hoped using his own phrasing would perk her friend up, but she knew him well enough to know his agitation was beyond salvageable.  
  
“You know it is. I’m surprised Simon Goddard isn’t crouched under the table as it is.”  
  
”I heard you called them a cover band at your show on Sunday,” she smiled over the wide lip of her wine glass.  
  
“I heard I just forgot the lyrics to Suedehead,” he sighed, but met her eye to enjoy the humor. “But I think you know this is beyond troubling. This isn’t about a reunion, it’s obvious to just about everyone with a brain that it’s a vendetta.”  
  
Linder’s eyes drug across the length of the ceiling. “They’re playing at sticky Manchester bar lounges, and you’re selling out LA venues. He’s making a fool of himself.”  
  
“Making a fool,” Linder watched as her friend licked the corner of his upper lip thoughtfully, “of _my songs_.”  
  
“He’s just trying to give you something very solid to kick against, don’t let him see you looking.”  
  
Morrissey drained his wine.  
  
“He can’t think this will make me join them.”  
  
  
**III.** ** _There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages, I’m bleeding, I’m not just making conversation._**

  
Andy didn’t feel indebted to anyone, and certainly he knew, no one felt indebted to him. It was strange to have so many people cheering for him again, beyond nostalgic and the deja-vu.  
  
Johnny sang again tonight, mumbling through the lyrics, though he said every word.  
  
It was cringe-worthy, and Andy wondered if half the audience didn’t pay for a ticket just to confirm the dissent of their rapidly fading guitar hero.  
  
Last night a beer bottle had whizzed an inch from Johnny’s head.  
  
Two nights ago a small band of Morrissey fans organized over a fan forum to show up and chant the singer’s name over the words.  
  
Johnny is drunk now, crookedly propped up against the wall backstage, face slack and unresponsive to the bassist’s hunched form examining him. Johnny’s eyes had cracked open and tried to focus before sliding closed again.  
  
Three shows ago, Andy would have hoisted the guitarist from the floor. Tonight he drove home alone, flipped the kitchen light on and wished he hadn’t already washed the dishes. He took a long moment to hang his coat before settling onto the sofa. Staring at the TV wasn’t as cheerless as going to bed at ten.  
  
**IV.**  
  
“Mike’s been phoning me.” Andy wouldn’t have brought this up a month ago.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I think he should play with us.” Andy leaned back against the headrest. Johnny snorted and reached for the fast food bag between them.  
  
“Do you have the extra Italian dressing?”  
  
“I told him I thought it was a good idea.” Johnny bit down on the plastic fork and looked at his friend from the corner of his eye.  
  
“It isn’t,” Johnny said.  
  
“He’s waiting at the venue for the sound check now.”  
  
Johnny looked over, his mouth pinched close.  
  
Andy turned the keys in the ignition and backed out of the parking lot.  
  
**V.**  
  
“Hey Mozzer,” Jesse smirked as Matt motioned for him to continue, “we can add more Smiths to the set list if you’d like.”  
  
Morrissey blinked and stared heavily at Boz who laughed to quickly.  
  
“I think it’s fine the way it is lads, why don’t you two take off and Mozzer and I can finish this up?”  
  
“They are laughing at me,” Morrissey said, pressing his hand over his slicked back quiff.  
  
“They aren’t, Mozzer, and I don’t think Johnny is doing this to upset you either,” Boz said it calmly, but his heart pounded brashly in his ears. He’d only dared to utter the other guitarist’s name four times in his entire tenure with the singer. “I think,” he paused and took in Morrissey’s expression, “I think if you would go there you would see that it isn’t meant to be a jab at you. I think it’s something else.”  
  
“Mhm,” Morrissey nodded, feeling no small part betrayed.  
  
**VI.** _ **I'm not able to put life in compartments yet. That's all.**  _  
  
“Tonight we have a guest,” Johnny says between songs.  
  
Morrissey hadn’t been ready, and barely had time to process that the song was over before a blinding spotlight shined down on him, and for a moment he couldn’t make out the faces of anyone around him. He thought the tightly packed gapping fans were going to hang their arms across his neck and drag him to the ground. But in a rash haze of singular shock and need, the crowd parted to the stage at Johnny’s urging.  
  
Morrissey licked the corner of his lip, and looked up at the green eyes of Andy Rourke, staring quizzically down at him from the stage. Mike’s head peaked over a cymbal, and then lowered again. For a second Morrissey thought of staging a sincere plea for mistaken identity, and shouldering his way to the nearest exit.  
  
But a sense of ownership possessed him to walk slowly towards the stage. He stared blankly at the hand Johnny was offering him to shake, and instead snatched the microphone from the guitarist’s other hand.  
  
There was a sense of shared awe at seeing the four of them on the stage together, whatever the circumstance. “I think I’m quite right in telling you all,” he said, pressing his lips together thoughtfully, “that if you love the Smiths, if you honor the band as they were,” he paced past Andy, staring solemnly into a crowd that he couldn’t see, “you will leave.”  
  
A few people in the crowd turned towards on another, and murmurs worked their way around the room, but no one made any moves towards the door. Andy looked over at Johnny, whose grin hadn’t faded. The guitarist had raised an eyebrow, and was regarding Morrissey as if the singer were only setting up a joke that they were all in on.  
  
“This,” Morrissey gestured widely, more towards the drums than anywhere else, “is a limping resurrection.”  
  
“Alright Moz, we can do one of your songs if we need to shake things up,” Johnny shouted, tilting his head back.  
  
Morrissey down for a moment, and Johnny wasn’t sure if the singer was going to acknowledge him at all. The guitarist’s lips perked up, and slowly and flatly he plucked out the opening chords to Suedehead.  
  
Morrissey laughed and shook his head, as if the couldn’t believe he had allowed himself to be a part of this. He set the microphone back into the stand, and started a deliberate walk to the side of the stage.  
  
“Why do you come here? Why do you hang around? Ohhh why do you come?” Johnny crooned into the mic.  
  
When Morrissey stopped walking and pivoted, for a crazy moment, Andy thought Morrissey was going to join in. But in a flash, the singer struck the side of Johnny’s smiling mouth, sending the thin man backwards onto an amp, his guitar thudding down on the side of his head in a thud.  
  
**VII.** ** _And he wouldn’t kiss me, but he covered my body with his body and held me down until I promised not to run back out into the street again._**

  
Johnny groaned into the second-hand sofa security had dumped him on an hour ago.  
  
“Open your eyes,” a voice commanded from somewhere above him.  
  
The voice sighed, and he felt the weight shift on the sofa, as the person settled in next to his thighs.  
  
“Well, I’d say we’ve taken this to its natural conclusion,” the voice said, as Johnny squinted hesitantly at the blonde sitting next to him.  
  
“Where’s Morrissey?” Johnny asked, bringing a hand up to touch a small bandage affixed to a deep cut on the side of his head.  
  
“What did you think would happen?” Andy rested his chin against his chest, and peered at the pinched waist of his oldest friend.  
  
Johnny closed his eyes again, and turned back towards the sofa where it was darker and harder to breathe.  
  
  
**_What you love is your own love. It's not love, it's selfishness. It's not me you think of, but what you feel about me._**

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story please consider [buying me more caffeine for my bloodstream.](https://ko-fi.com/A402111U)


End file.
